‘No, thank you.’ She sank back down on the seat as he strode out into the kitchen, perching on the very edge of it with her hands bunched in her lap and her knees tightly together as she heard him pour himself more coffee.
‘Your solicitor has informed mine that you want no financial settlement of any kind. Is that true?’ His voice spoke from the kitchen, harsh and abrasive, and she winced inwardly at the tone.
‘Yes.’ Her voice died in her throat and she tried again. ‘Yes, that’s true. This is all my fault after all, it wouldn’t be fair—’
‘What, exactly, is all your fault, Amy?’ He appeared in the doorway and her heart nearly stopped at the sight of him. He was so cold, so angry … If she could stop loving him, wanting him, needing him, this would be so much easier, but she knew with dreadful finality that no matter what he said or did to her it wouldn’t make any difference. He was everything she had always wanted, dreamed of, in the long cold years of growing up without love and warmth. And now he despised and hated her. And it had to stay that way. ‘I mean, I’d really like to know, strange as it may seen, in spite of being an almost irrelevant complication in your life. I wouldn’t expect a little thing like a husband to stop you following your own star but, if it’s not too much trouble, a slight indication of why would be helpful.’
She stared at him, her eyes wide with apprehension and confusion, as he came nearer. What could she say after all? ‘I have told you,’ she forced out at last through white lips as he paused to kneel at her side, his eyes narrowed black slits. ‘I just realised we’d made a mistake, that’s all, that we weren’t compatible—’
‘The hell we aren’t.’ She had known, from the first moment in the cottage, that he was going to make love to her and now as the heat of his mouth seared her lips open she found her resistance was only a token gesture. Her head knew she ought to fight him, that she had to prove to him that she meant what she said, but her body was a different matter. That was alive with such a fierce deep hunger that even a will of iron would have melted with the heat. ‘You are mine, Amy, you’ll always be mine. If I really believed you’d slept with John, I’d kill him …’
How they came to be on the thick sheepskin rug in front of the fireplace she wasn’t quite sure, but as she felt the length of his body against hers all lucid thought was a thing of the past. Her hands lifted to his shoulders and the back of his head, her fingers luxuriating in the feel of his thick virile hair as she brought his head down to meet her lips. His mouth was intoxicating, sensual, and now his hands slid from her waist to open her blouse feverishly, seeking and finding the firm silky line of her breasts as he expertly unclipped her bra and let the burgeoning swell free.
His touch was like fire on her overheated senses, the rolling waves of pleasure that swept her body unmistakable, and as his mouth followed his hands in a seductive caress that had her aching for more, she whispered his name over and over again, half mad with desire.
Her fingers were stroking the hard male body under his shirt, revelling in the familiar feel and smell of him, and as he raised his head again to find first her mouth and then the shell-like sensitivity of her ears she felt the need inside her grow to unbearable proportions. It had been so long. She had been in the desert place so long.
‘I need you, Amy.’ His voice was thick and deep, an echo of her own heart, and now the tide was carrying them both to the ultimate conclusion, fierce and unstoppable. ‘You are so perfect my love, so very perfect.’ So very perfect? His words were bitter gall in her mouth.
For a moment he didn’t realise she had frozen beneath him, his desire a fierce consuming fire, but then as she wrenched her mouth from his and beat her fists frantically against his back she heard him groan deep and harsh in his throat. ‘Amy, you can’t do this …’
But even as he spoke he rolled away, sitting up in one violent movement as his breath filled the small room in shuddering gasps.
He had stopped. She lay exactly as he had left her, her clothes dishevelled and open, her heart pounding so sickeningly that for a moment the room faded away. He could have taken her, he had been so close, but in spite of all his threats and accusations he had stopped.
They remained in a frozen tableau for a full minute as he fought for control, and then he stood up slowly without glancing at her once. ‘I’ll be outside when you’re ready,’ he said expressionlessly, his voice empty and cold. ‘Take as long as you need, you have all the time in the world.’